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Biodiversity Blog

 
Featured Species: Clown Beetle

Featured Species: Clown Beetle

  Clown beetles, also known as Hister beetles, are a family (Histeridae) that contains over 3900 species. Their unusually glossy-but-sculptured surfaces and spiny appendages make them sought after by some collectors. They are found throughout the world, but not terribly common in Central Texas, which is why when Dr. Alex Wild, Curator ...
FEATURED SPECIES: Hogchoker (Trinectes maculatus)

FEATURED SPECIES: Hogchoker (Trinectes maculatus)

by Dr. F. Douglas Martin The Hogchoker is a small flatfish found in bays and estuaries but often spends extended time in rivers feeding on worms and insect larvae in soft mud bottoms.  They get their common name because East Coast fishermen would feed these so-called "trash" fish to their hogs, after which the fish would bow its body into a su...
Featured Species - Pecos Pupfish (Cyprinodon pecosensis)

Featured Species - Pecos Pupfish (Cyprinodon pecosensis)

This species was once one of the most abundant fishes in the Pecos River, but is now restricted to Salt Creek in Texas and just a few locations in New Mexico due to hybridization with Sheepshead Minnow (C. variegatus) and groundwater pumping. As a result, it is classified as Threatened in Texas. It has a wide tolerance for physiochemical factors su...
Featured Species - Toothless Blindcat (Trogloglanis pattersoni)

Featured Species - Toothless Blindcat (Trogloglanis pattersoni)

  The Toothless Blindcat, Trogloglanis pattersoni, is one of two highly cave-adapted eyeless and depigmented catfishes known only from the deepest parts of the Edwards Aquifer under San Antonio, TX. Specimens from its humanly inaccessible habitat have come only from a few very deep city water wells near the area of the aquifer where salin...